It appears that women really do fancy dark and brooding men that look like they could be up to no good. A new study found that women are drawn to men with facial features that show the "dark triad" traits and men who have brooding looks that may suggest they are bad or mad.
The study was conducted by psychologists from the University of Liverpool with help from associates from Poland and Finland. It took a total of 2,370 adult females who were shown a number of computer simulated men's faces in two different sets, one face with darker triad features and one with less, according to The Telegraph. The women were then asked which set of pictures they were more attracted to, and the study found that women who were attracted to men with dark triad features wanted more children.
The "dark triad" of personality traits includes Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. The facial features that are most closely associated with the dark triad are large skulls, solid and defined jaws, angular noses and deep-set eyes, the Daily Mail reported. The reason why women who want children were drawn to men with those traits is because of natural selection, as they indicate strong genes and good mental and physical health.
"We found that the number of offspring born to women given for their age was associated with women's preference for narcissistic and Machiavellian male faces, but not with preference for psychopathic male faces," explained the study, which was published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
Out of the three dark triad features, narcissism was most closely associated with social success, as well as physical and psychological health benefits. Women that were attracted to narcissistic men were likely to have more children than average, while those attracted to Machiavellian men had fewer offspring. The women who had a preference for psychopathic men's faces and their number of children was unrelated.
"These findings suggest that in modern society, women's preference for some of the dark triad traits in men may be related to their reproductive success," the study concluded, according to DNA India.
